Here's another scam  to be wary of. Got this is my inbox this morning...a supposed winners notification for Euromillion Loteria or Euro Millions. Please feel free to pass this along to family and friends and remind them not to respond to similar offers.

Here's some good news for us "scam-fighters".

Internet companies Yahoo! and MySpace have thrown their corporate hats into the ring in legal battles against spammers using their names for fraud.

In New York, web giant Yahoo! filed a lawsuit  against  a group called Yahoo Lottery Spammers on Tuesday for allegedly sending email messages to Yahoo! subscribers informing them that they had won a company lottery .  The email entitled recipients to certain prizes from  Yahoo!. 

 The emails were formatted to pass as official Yahoo! messages and asked the recipients to provide personal information such as account passwords and credit card information - supposedly for them to claim the prize winnings.

Thanks to the vigilance of a concerned reader from Malaysia,  OSA officials got wind of a new "copycat"  on the prowl...The new scam is a winners notice for Euro Millions, supposedly sent by our company -- but with a misspelled name and a London address (our offices are in Amsterdam, The Netherlands):


This isn't the first time that scam operators have used our name, email address, as well as the names of our employees to perpetrate fraud.  The new "OSA Lotteries" scam even comes with a fake Lottery payment processing form.  However, the recipient has to get in touch with a Mr. Anthony Adams (obviously to send processing fees amounting to x number of dollars) --something you would NEVER have to do if you were a legitimate OSA prize winner.

Beware of Deceptive Lottery Offers!

Overseas Subscribers Agents (OSA), in common with other legitimate agents for overseas government lotteries, are deeply concerned by the proliferation of lottery scams being offered through direct mail and email around the world. Not only do the opportunists who operate these scams deceive thousands of people and steal money from them under false pretenses, but they tarnish the integrity of the entire lottery industry.

Different names, same (false!) message and ridiculous claims. Here are some new scams to watch out for: The Belgische Lottery Email, the Spanish Email Loteria, and the Aston Martin Lottery. These guys never give up! If you can spot the "scammy elements" feel free point them out in the Comments section.

Overseas Subscribers Agents (OSA) announced today the launch of its new 24-hour Online Help Desk operation, as part of its continuing battle against an upsurge of lottery scams abusing the OSA name.

In answer to several concerned subscribers' requests, OSA Newsletter will regularly be posting various lottery scam emails that we and our players receive.  It's a little tedious, but extremely necessary - as we really would like to do everything we can to help consumers avoid falling victim to these rampant fraudulent emails. 

So we decided - since it must be done anyway, might as well have some fun with it.  For every new post we make, we will be poking fun at how silly some of these scams are  ... feel free to join us in the Comments section!